


the world's a little brighter

by impossibletruths



Series: cr femslash fest 2k17 [4]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Star Trek Fusion, Anniversary, Established Relationship, F/F, Femslash February
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-25
Updated: 2017-02-25
Packaged: 2018-09-26 19:10:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,184
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9917633
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/impossibletruths/pseuds/impossibletruths
Summary: Keyleth tries to figure out an anniversary gift for Vex, which is easier said than done when you live on a spaceship. [a star trek au]





	

**Author's Note:**

> written for cr femslash fest. title from “accidentally in love” by counting crows.

Keyleth has the coolest girlfriend in Starfleet.

This is, to be fair, a biased statement, and Percy would argue with her on the feasibility of defining “coolness” outside of its standard thermodynamic parameters, and that would devolve into designing an actual measurement system for said “coolness” (that is, of the social variety rather than the thermal one) and, well. Whatever. Percy would be wrong.

Because Keyleth has the coolest girlfriend in Starfleet.

The problem with this, of course (though Keyleth hesitates to call it “problem” because such vocabulary implicates a harmful or unwelcome situation and Keyleth means it in the purely scientific sense, that of an obstacle to be overcome) is that Keyleth doesn’t quite know what to do for and/or with (”and” being preferable to “or” because her girlfriend deserves absolutely everything in the Federation except that she’d probably oppose such ownership on humanitarian grounds) her girlfriend as a surprise for their anniversary.

This is usually the time in which she approaches Vex, because Vex has a skill with interpersonal relationships that Keyleth lacks (making her the least likely candidate to codify a measurement system for societal coolness, as noted). Unfortunately, as Vex is the recipient of said surprise, including her in its creation would undermine the surprise itself and defeat the purpose of all this planning.

So Keyleth’s in a sort of predicament. And she does what she always does when she’s in a predicament.

She seeks out Percy.

Their chief engineer spends most of his time hanging around the warp core, as most well-trained and on-duty engineers do, and Keyleth finds him elbow-deep in a mess of wires and circuits as he updates something she doesn’t quite understand. Her experience and training pertains to the botanical and meteorological; the complicated creature that is their primary propulsion system largely eludes her.

Anyway, that’s what Percy’s for.

“Percy,” she says when she finds him, and he twists around, goggles turning his eyes wide and bug-like, and she frowns.

“Keyweth,” he says around the hyperspanner clenched between his teeth. “Wafs whon?”

“What?”

It takes him a few moments to extract himself from the delicate wiring of his work. “What’s wrong?” he tries again, once he holds the hyperspanner in his hand and has control over his mouth.

“Who says anything’s wrong?”

“Your expression rather does.”

“Oh.”

“Yes.”

“Well. It’s Vex.”

His face immediately shifts into an expression Keyleth would categorize as solemn, or perhaps grim. He sets the hyperspanner down. “Oh. Oh, dear. Is everything alright?”

“Oh, yes,” Keyleth assures him. “Well, not really. It is. Mostly. I have a problem.”

Percy, to his credit, only hesitates a moment at the impossible mix of affirmatives and denials she offers. He blinks twice, a sure sign that he is mulling over myriad possible courses of action. “Right,” he decides. “Well, you had better come with me.”

She goes gladly, but also asks him, “Where are we going?” as they enter the lift, because curiosity is a sign of well-developed mind and an important tool for any scientist.

“Ten Forward,” Percy tells her, and the floor of the lift jolts slightly in response to his direction, shooting upwards. “This seems like the sort of thing that requires a drink.”

And, well, Keyleth isn’t opposed to a little time for relaxation. Maybe it will help her come up with ideas for what to do for Vex.

Also, drinking with Percy tends to be a great deal of fun regardless, and not something to be opposed. He gets delightfully indignant about the funniest things, and doesn’t mind as much when Keyleth rambles on about home. Not to mention they’ve seen each other sloppily drunk often enough that nothing else fazes them. Percy truly is a dear, dear friend. 

She has empirical evidence to back that claim up too, mostly in the form of embarrassing photographs taken by Scanlan and other members of the bridge crew, all of whom promise her they do it because they love her and no one should ever forget these sorts of things.

(Keyleth’s favorites are from the one time she and Percy had played chicken with the twins. They had won, but only by a narrow margin, mostly due to the height they have on the twins, and in the end it didn’t matter because everyone had ended up bruised to the gamma quadrant and back and Percy had fallen through a table. Truly an amazing night. Keyleth keeps those pictures in her lab.)

Upon their arrival at Ten Forward, Keyleth finds a table and Percy orders them both drinks with a single-mindedness he usually reserves for his experiments. Neither of them speaks until Gilmore hands over whichever concoction Percy has deemed adequate for the situation at present, and Keyleth ends up with something blue and slightly foaming with a sour, fruity taste. Only when she has taken a sip, deemed it surprisingly delicious, and set it down does Percy lean forwards and speak again.

“Right,” he says. “So what’s the problem?”

Keyleth nudges her drink aside to better mirror his posture, so that they sit conspiratorially close together, each bracing their elbows upon the table. Percy pauses only to push his glasses up his nose with a finger.

“Well,” says Keyleth. “It’s our anniversary.”

“Yes.”

“And I’d like to do something for her.”

“Naturally.”

“But I don’t know what to do.”

“I believe flowers and chocolates are customary,” he says. Keyleth huffs.

“Yes I know that. But I want to do something special.”

“Because it’s your anniversary.”

“Exactly.”

“Hmm.”

Yes, hmm. Keyleth sips her drink and notes the way the bubbles fizz up into her nose. This makes her think of bubbles in general, and the variations between natural aeration and froth caused by heating liquids, which makes her think of artificial heat and/or fizz, which makes her think of––

“Oh.”

Percy looks up. “Oh?”

“Yes. I’ve figured it out.” It falls into place without a great deal of work from her, and now that she has connected the pieces she feels rather silly for not thinking of it in the first place, especially given Vex’s often-ignored love for creature comforts and personal time. It seems rather perfect, actually. Though she is not entirely certain Percy will understand.

“That’s good,” he says. His eyes crinkle around the corners. “What have you decided?”

“I think she could use a spa day,” Keyleth says. Percy looks confused, as Keyleth has predicted he would, because Percy does not and never has understood the concept of “spa day.” Which is no fault of his own, of course, but nevertheless. “Risa, perhaps,” she adds, and after only a brief consideration she decides it ideal. Percy blinks.

“Ah.”

Keyleth pats him on the hand comfortingly. “Thank you for your help.”

“I’m not sure what I did.”

“Plenty,” she assures him. “It will make both of us very happy.”

“Well,” he says, straightening his already-straight glasses. “In that case. Happy anniversary.”

“Yes,” says Keyleth, and she sips her fizzing fruity-sour drink and thinks of how much her girlfriend, who is the coolest person in Starfleet, will enjoy a vacation to the sun-and-sand beaches of one of Risa’s myriad spas. “I do think it will be.”

“Think what will be?”

Keyleth nearly jumps out of her skin. She had, prior to seeking Percy out, predicted a very low possibility of finding Vex wandering around the ship at this time, she is scheduled to be on duty on the bridge. To find her in Ten Forward of all places is even more unlikely, and Keyleth does not believe her ears for a moment. But prediction and rationality do truly seem to have failed, because Vex saunters up to their table as if she had nowhere else to be. 

Keyleth, who prides herself in rational and clear decision making, remembers suddenly that her ability to reason stems from careful and long consideration rather than prompt and instantaneous decision making.

To put it plainly, she panics.

“Um!” she replies, and takes a very long sip of her fizzy blue drink, and gets bubbles up her nose, and instead of contemplating the fizzy drink/spa relationship, which is much closer than she has given it credit for when she thinks about it–– Well, instead of thinking about that not-so-complicated relationship, she thinks about absolutely nothing, her mind a static hiss of blue bubbles.

“Shore leave,” Percy says smoothly, because Percy _is_  rather good at making decisions on the fly, and that is why he deals with the temperamental and complicated mess of machinery and moving parts that is the engine while Keyleth tends to the flora and fauna of a multitude of worlds. Even the plants that want to kill you often give you warning first. “We think Scanlan will pick a good location.”

“Doesn’t he always,” Vex says, appreciative. “I’m hoping for somewhere tropical. What do you think, Keyleth dear?”

“Yep!” Keyleth agrees automatically, foam on her lip. “Yeah! Tropical sounds great!”

“Maybe you can convince him,” Vex suggests, and she kisses the foam off Keyleth’s lips before she disappears again, leaving Keyleth staring after her, red to the tips of her ears and mouth slightly parted as she tries to process.

“Wha,” she manages. Percy looks suspiciously like he is hiding a smirk, which he does far more poorly than he thinks, and Keyleth has been friends with him long enough to recognize the signs. She graciously does not call him on it.

“Maybe you should finish your drink,” he suggests, not unkindly.

Keyleth finishes her drink.

Percy is a very good friend.

* * *

It turns out to be a great easier than she predicted to talk Scanlan into talking the admiral into spending their next cycle of shore leave in the Risan System, which Keyleth afterwards admits to herself she most likely should have realized, as their captain has an undeniable taste for the simpler pleasures of life. But then, that is the sort of thing she generally tends not to consider save for when Vex is involved.

All parameters shift where Vex is involved, which is one of the reasons Keyleth loves her so, and finds her so fascinating, but sometimes it leaves her feeling a little bit adrift, only in a good way, as if she could go anywhere and do anything, and Pike laughs when she admits that and calls it love.

(As she is with most things, Pike is right.)

* * *

Four standard days later Keyleth arrives in her quarters to find rose petals on the bedspread. That is, she notes, not the only thing spread upon the bed. 

Vex stretches across the standard-issue fabric of her sheets in decidedly not-standard-issue garments (undergarments, the part of her mind that must catalogue everything specifies).

Keyleth stutters. The door hisses shut behind her.

“Keyleth, darling,” says Vex with a smile like the cat who has caught the canary, a fallacious phrase as cats do not often catch canaries and even if they did they certainly cannot smile like this, all teeth and self-satisfaction. “Darling, why don’t you change out of that awful uniform and join me.”

“I like my uniform,” Keyleth says, even as she tugs it off, leaving a blue puddle of fabric on the ground and crawls into bed. She can feel Vex smile around her kiss, smooth and slow and just this side of teasing, and for a moment Keyleth loses herself and everything fuzzes out, blue bubbles of static.

“Happy anniversary, darling,” says Vex when they break for air, mouth slick and eyes dark. “How shall we celebrate?”

And that finally kicks Keyleth’s mind back into gear, because she has planned for this occasion and will not let such preparation slip away, even among such joyous pursuits as an evening alone with Vex.

“What about on Risa?” she asks. “I talked to Scanlan––”

Vex pushes herself upright, eyes wide with shock. “Really?”

“Yeah. You said I should, so––” Vex cuts her off before she can finish, almost bouncing as she sits up on her heels.

“And we’re really going?”

Keyleth nods. “I booked us a room and everything.”

“Oh, Keyleth!” Vex laughs and falls forward so they lie crosswise along the bed and laughs into the mess of Keyleth’s hair. “Oh, I love you, darling.”

Keyleth blushes to the tips of her ears and pulls back enough to take note of Vex’s brilliant grin and the brightness to her eyes and the utter glee in her voice. She makes a mental note of the success of this gift for use in future considerations, and that is about as far as she gets before Vex starts dropping kisses across her face and all thought of future calculations fly from her mind.

“Happy anniversary,” she manages, holding to Vex as if for dear life, because Vex is the coolest person in Starfleet and a whirlwind and Keyleth is mostly just happy to be along for the ride. 

Then her girlfriend rolls them over so she can stare down at Keyleth, hair a waterfall over her shoulder, and Keyleth does not think of anything else for a while.


End file.
